Wouldn’t it be great if people who came to your site WANTED to show off a link back to your site?  There are plenty of company’s out there enticing people to do just that.  Let’s take a look at a few:

Kiva – People rave about Kiva and are proud to place a big, colorful, ad about Kiva on their websites.  Why?  Because they feel great about donating to Kiva and want to publicize their generosity. 

Bruce Clay – Bruce Clay has hundreds of backlinks from relevant, related, SEO sites.  Why?  Because Bruce Clay set the standards for SEO and then allowed people to boast their Bruce Clay seal of approval on their websites.

eZine Articles – There are hundreds of content writers promoting the link to eZine Articles on their websites.  Why?  Because eZine articles offers authors a collection of “expert author” labels that increase an author’s credibility.

In each case, the company’s have created a demand for their logo by devising a program that increases the website owner’s credibility.  In order for someone to WANT to add your link to their page, they’ve got to WANT to show off their affiliation.  When an affiliate with you boosts another person or business’ credibility, they are happy to promote your link!

Also, each of these sites makes it easy for others to add the link. They provide a selection of images and the ready-made HTML code so that it can be easily placed right on the website.   

How can you incorporate these ideas on your site and start building your backlinks?

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Online networking today has finally reached a level of maturity that allows people to interact in almost the same fashion that we would in real life.  The problem is that most marketers trying to take advantage of the promotional benefits or social networking are trying to connect with other people using only the mass communication tools of the past. 

Of course there is a need for mass communication tools like advertising, press releases, etc in website promotion—but these methods don’t fit into online social networking.  Every blogger knows the frustration of seeing a page of mass-submitted comments heartlessly advertising Viagra or other amazing Rx products. 

C’mon!  Why did that person ever waste their time!  Getting spam on a blog is even more insulting than getting spam through email or mail.  A blog, like other social networking sites, is personal and in order to get noticed by a person, you’ve got to strike up some personal interaction. 

Just like at a business event you wouldn’t walk up to someone and say. “Buy cheap Viagra now!” and then walk away… those kind of one-sided, thoughtless tactics don’t work online either.  If you want to get noticed by your potential customers and industry peers, the process isn’t much different from doing this in person.

Here are some quick tips for striking up professional-related conversations online. 

1.  Reply to blog posts—regularly.  Make it a point read the blogs on your RSS feed reader every day or at least every week.  When you have something to add to the conversation, don’t be shy—leave a comment!  Challenge yourself not to just passively read blogs, but to think about what these bloggers are saying so that your comments add value to the conversation.  If you’re a regular commenter, the blogger and other regular readers are sure to take notice.

2.  Create profiles on blog social networking sites like MyBlogLog.  This way, when you visit a blog of someone who has MyBlogLog installed on their blog, your image will appear as one of the latest visitors along with a link to your MyBlogLog profile.  Pictures are powerful.  Bloggers and readers both are more likely to visit your profile and consequently your blog if they see a picture.

3.  Discuss the ideas and observations of other bloggers in your blog posts.  When you link to other blogs in your blog posts, a trackback is created.  Through trackbacks, bloggers can see who is talking to them and linking to them. Wouldn’t you be more apt to strike up a conversation with someone who highlighted some of your ideas? 

The key to social networking is to be genuine—just as you would if you were face to face. 

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How often do you visit social media sites like Digg.com, Del.icio.us, Reddit etc? I do often. Those sites offer a wealth of online resources from health to technology. And they’re becoming more and more powerful in terms of control of what we read, watch and buy.

Each one of us can engage in social bookmarking as we’re surfing the web. In fact, some of your customers are extremely hooked on this bookmarking activity. On Digg’s social bookmarking site, these folks are called Top Diggers. While this term doesn’t reveal much about their potential to spread the word about your products and services, the term “secret influencers,” used to describe active members on social bookmarking sites in general, is term that does.

There are certain influential users on social bookmarking sites who spread the word about sites and ideas day in and day out. Some of the websites these folks bookmark receive so many votes that they get listed on front pages of Digg.com, Del.icio.us, Reddit etc—giving those websites a massive amount of exposure from influential sources.

Most Diggers and social bookmarkers do what they do for the thrill of it. If fact, what social bookmarkers do is to provide resources that people fall in love with. A random user who visits Digg.com is seeing aggregated news and resources that have been Dugg by the most influential and active members of the Digg community.

As a marketer, I’m particularly interested in how this phenomenon controls our sphere of interests. In marketing, huge sums of money are shelled out just to understand audience’s needs, interests, and behaviors. For companies, social bookmarking offers unique insight into the types of products and services that get noticed by the web populace. When I go to social bookmarking sites, I learn volumes about what’s hot in the world, what’s cool with the youth today, what adults like to read, etc.

Through social bookmarking sites, we are given the opportunity to make a difference in the world. However, with the growing popularity of social bookmarking websites, some websites like user/submitter.com offer payments for bookmarking (50 cents for three votes). By doing this, they are getting their customer’s websites exposed on social media networks. Although representatives of social media networks claim that their algorithms change on a regular basis to prevent fraud or from top users promoting their friends, they won’t be able to catch every online marketing attempt on their sites.

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As discussed in the previous post, social bookmarking and social networks are fast becoming extremely popular and influential. It’s no surprise that the most talked about candidate running for president elections of 2008, Barack Obama, realized the importance of online social media for his campaign.

He’s the first politician to back his election campaign by launching a social media site. www.BarackObama.com is a full scope social networking site which allows members to write blogs, set up personal profiles, meet others through internal site messaging, upload photos, and all of the other benefits found on typical social networking sites. He’s even got his videos posted on YouTube and his photographs on Flickr.

The Obama example foreshadows the new wave in online political campaigns. Of all communication mediums, the internet offers the widest reach possible—something that politicians need badly!

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